Virgin Media doubles XL broadband speed in May to 20 Mbps.

[Overlord69]

From: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/ (http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/digitaltv/a43958/virgin-doubles-xl-broadband-speed-in-may.html)
Virgin Media will double the downstream speed of its top tier 'XL' cable broadband service to 20Mbps in May.

Upstream speeds will also be increased to 768kbps. However, the price of the service will also increase from £35 to £37 per month.

"We want to make entertainment and communications the simple and exciting world it should be, but our technology also means we can offer an ultra-fast broadband service that our competitors can't match," said Ernie Cormier, chief commercial officer. "For internet savvy customers who want the best broadband money can buy, our XL service is perfect for speedy downloading and uploading - whether it's music, videos, podcasts or blogs."

Virgin said that all its broadband services "will continue to offer unlimited downloads."

[Singh400]

This has been known for a while now, I posted a topic regarding this in the VirginMedia sub forum couple of weeks back.

Didn't know about the price increase though.

[grey fox]

I just heard about this when I got a call from one of their people trying to sell me digital telly. Except the lady told me that the monthly cost will be going down from £35 to £32:confused:

Anyway I have been contemplating mvoing from Virgin Media to a different ISP for a couple of weeks now, but I will see what happens and decide at the end of May.

[Bluewolf]

They possibly meant there's a reduction when you take their television package and broadband package at the same time if that's what they were calling to sell? I've heard £37 from everywhere aswell.

[steve300]

Virgin Media will double the downstream speed of its top tier 'XL' cable broadband service to 20Mbps in May.

Upstream speeds will also be increased to 768kbps. However, the price of the service will also increase from £35 to £37 per month.

humm... That's almost as fast as I'm getting on ADSL2 with Bethere.co.uk... For £24 a month... Nice to see Virgin catching up :hiya:

Steve

[unique]

humm... That's almost as fast as I'm getting on ADSL2 with Bethere.co.uk... For £24 a month... Nice to see Virgin catching up :hiya:

Steve

you still have to add £11 or whatever for a BT line to use adsl, so thats £35 a month. you don't need a phone package to get cable internet, but i think it's only another £5 or something if you did want it. there's plenty of people with mobiles who don't need a bt line anymore

do you get unlimited bandwidth/downloads on bethere though? i mean proper unlimited like you do with cable? and is the speeds like that constantly?

[steve300]

you still have to add £11 or whatever for a BT line to use adsl, so thats £35 a month. you don't need a phone package to get cable internet, but i think it's only another £5 or something if you did want it. there's plenty of people with mobiles who don't need a bt line anymore

do you get unlimited bandwidth/downloads on bethere though? i mean proper unlimited like you do with cable? and is the speeds like that constantly?

Yeah that's true, but the g/f often spends whole evenings on the phone, so need a land line.

The downloads are completely unlimited on £24/month package (you can pay £12/month - for same d/l speed, but limit's 4Gb) and my d/l speed has been very consistent (over 30Gb last month). U/l speeds are 1.3Mbps too. But you do need a pretty good BT line for >10Mbps speeds which usually means you have to live fairly close to the exchange.

Thing that really put me off ntl/virgin, is customer service when I had their 2mb broadband - kept cutting out, and had to spend 40+ minutes on phone to them each time... Be's been excellent for CS so far.

Steve

[unique]

Yeah that's true, but the g/f often spends whole evenings on the phone, so need a land line.

The downloads are completely unlimited on £24/month package (you can pay £12/month - for same d/l speed, but limit's 4Gb) and my d/l speed has been very consistent (over 30Gb last month). U/l speeds are 1.3Mbps too. But you do need a pretty good BT line for >10Mbps speeds which usually means you have to live fairly close to the exchange.

Thing that really put me off ntl/virgin, is customer service when I had their 2mb broadband - kept cutting out, and had to spend 40+ minutes on phone to them each time... Be's been excellent for CS so far.

Steve

i've found blueyonder/telewest great. i just have 4mb for £25, no phone as i have my mobile and hardly use the mins on that, and i have freeview/pvr so no need for the tv. in 2.5 years it's only been down twice for any noticable time. once for 4 hours, and at new year for just under a day as the power lines were down, not that it was their fault. i've only had to call customer service to set up the line, and the twice to enquire why my line was down, and they were fine. i once called from a friends house to set up his wireless internet as i didn't know where the mac number was and they were really helpful. i certainly recommend them. i had adsl and pipex at a previous address and the line was always dropping, and that was before pipex turned to crap as i hear they are now

[grey fox]

They possibly meant there's a reduction when you take their television package and broadband package at the same time if that's what they were calling to sell? I've heard £37 from everywhere aswell.

That's what I thought so I asked her and she said the price would be dropping anyway, purely because of their need to compete. Mind you she could have been telling me anything because she wanted me to sign up to TV, so time will tell I suppose.

i've found blueyonder/telewest great. i just have 4mb for £25, no phone as i have my mobile and hardly use the mins on that...

Your usage sounds almost the same as mine. I have been with blueyonder myself for 3 years and have really found the connection to be great. I do have their telephone but I only ever use it for takeaways, as for most calls I use my mobile. In the 3 years I only ever had one problem where the speed dropped down to almost dial-up levels, so I posted a message on the newsgroups and it was sorted within 2 hours:thumbsup:

Lately though I have noticed that sometimes the speed will drop off a bit, and I have had to powercycle the modem. That's one of the reasons why I am thinking it may be time to look elsewhere, but if the 20Mbps comes through I will give them a little longer to see how things go.

[unique]

That's what I thought so I asked her and she said the price would be dropping anyway, purely because of their need to compete. Mind you she could have been telling me anything because she wanted me to sign up to TV, so time will tell I suppose.



Your usage sounds almost the same as mine. I have been with blueyonder myself for 3 years and have really found the connection to be great. I do have their telephone but I only ever use it for takeaways, as for most calls I use my mobile. In the 3 years I only ever had one problem where the speed dropped down to almost dial-up levels, so I posted a message on the newsgroups and it was sorted within 2 hours:thumbsup:

Lately though I have noticed that sometimes the speed will drop off a bit, and I have had to powercycle the modem. That's one of the reasons why I am thinking it may be time to look elsewhere, but if the 20Mbps comes through I will give them a little longer to see how things go.

i use my mobile for takeaways. i used to have them every nite of the week, but now very rarely tho

i just reread the digitalspy thing and see it mentions the top tier, but not the other tiers. i thought they were increasing the 4mb to 10mb at the same price. has anyone seen anything about this? £37 a month is a bit more than i want to pay

[grey fox]

From what I can remember everytime they have increased their speeds, all tiers have been doubled.

But from the look of this press release - link (http://pressoffice.virginmedia.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=205406&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=974156&highlight=) - it would seem that only the XL package will be getting a boost. This seems like they are just trying to tempt everybody to take the more expensive option. And it looks like the cost for it will go up to £37. I just hope it's worth it.

[triplea4uk]

I don't know why VM don't just do it like this.

£35 - 20mb
£30 - 10mb
£25 - 5mb

They could offer £5 reduction on each extra service taken out with them aswell.

VM prices are bit high really considering you do get a landline and bethere net for £35 with VM you only get net.

[Cheekster]

Is there a firm date of when 10MB broadband customers can phone up and upgrade to 20MB broadband for the extra £2?

For all those unhappy with how much Virgin Media are currently charging you for your broadband service, phone up and ask to be put through to "retentions" dept. State you are unhappy because other ISP's are offering better deals and they are very likely to reduce the amount you're paying. I got a long term deal i.e. it lasts for as long as I stay subscribed to the services of landline, 24/7 FREE calls to any UK landline, caller display and 10MB broadband for the pricely sum of £29.50 p.m. Was previously paying £43 p.m. but without the free calls. :clap:

Cheekster.